Q&A with former New Orleans Hornets owner George Shinn

Returning to New Orleans for the first time since he transferred ownership of the New Orleans Hornets to the NBA, founding owner George Shinn comes back Monday an avid fan and generous benefactor. Shinn will be in New Orleans to donate $500,000 to the Salvation Army for the rebuilding of local homes.

Michael DeMocker/The Times-Picayune archiveFormer New Orleans Hornets owner George Shinn says of the team: 'The Hornets belong in New Orleans. I hope the community supports them so they can stay there.'

As he prepared to make the donation and another visit, Shinn took time out with one of The Times-Picayune’s Hornets beat writers, Jimmy Smith, to answer questions about his health after his battle with prostate cancer, the team’s return to the playoffs, why the expected sale to minority partner Gary Chouest fell through, why the team accumulated such long-term debt, and the future of the NBA in New Orleans.

How’s your health?

I’ve taken one of my final PSAs (prostate-specific antigen test). They said I can take one every year now instead of every six months, but I’m going to keep taking more just for precautions. My (last) results were everything is clean and perfect. I don’t know if the word is perfect, but it’s as good as you can get. I feel real good about it. It makes you feel like you have a new lease on life.

Are you still a Hornets fan?

Oh, yes. I’ll never write that off. I follow them on TV and all and a lot of friends have asked, ‘Why don’t you come to a game?’ And really it’s a situation that it’s like getting over the loss of a family member. It’s going to take a little time. And I don’t know how emotionally I could handle it if I went to a game. (Those close to him) are trying to twist my arm to come to the game (Monday night vs. Utah), and I just don’t know if I’m ready. I told them I’d play it by ear. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

What do you think about the team being in the postseason again?

I think it’s great. It’s great for the community. It’s just great. The only sad thing is with David West going down, it’s just the unfortunate bad breaks of the game. That kind of thing happens. We all know it hurts. But coach (Monty Williams) has done an incredible job of blending these guys together and getting them fired up. In my years with the team, I’ve seen that it’s amazing what can happen when you get pretty good players fired up. And he’s good at that. Hopefully something good is going to happen. But I think it’s great for everybody.

You’re coming here to make a nice donation to the Salvation Army, so obviously you’re still dabbling in community affairs in New Orleans. Is that your plan for the future?

That’s my plan going forward. I have a very fond place in my heart for New Orleans. People there accepted me and supported me. It’s been a great relationship. Over the years we’ve been in New Orleans we’ve raised more than $4 million that went back into the community that went for helping to rebuild homes and do a lot of positive things. The Lord has blessed me. We’ve worked closely with the Salvation Army. They got in touch with me and said they wanted to build this center to help people who needed homes, and asked me if I would be willing to give them some money if they put my name on it. I said, ‘I’ll be willing to help you any way I can. How much do you need?’ And they said a half-million dollars. After I got my breath, I said, ‘I’d love to do it.’ I love the area, and the Salvation Army has done an incredible job helping people there and they’re such a great Christian organization. And that’s what I’m all about, serving the Lord. It was a no-brainer for me. I said absolutely, you got it.

For a long time it seemed that the sale to Gary Chouest was going to go through. Can you tell the fans what happened and why did the deal fall through?

That’s a good question. I can’t really respond to what was going on in Gary’s mind, because it wouldn’t be fair for me to do that. But really, the only person that knows the answer about that is Gary. (Chouest has not commented about the breakdown of the deal). I suppose the timing was just not right for him. But the timing was right for me. I’m just trying to look forward to my future, doing things with my foundation. After going through this cancer scare, I just made the decision that this was something I had to do to help my kids get their life in order, put together a trust for them so they could get their lives going instead of all of us clinging to the team. And with all the uncertainty and whatever, I felt it was time to do it.

There’s been a lot of misconception, I think, that Gary and I fought and didn’t communicate toward the end. That’s just not true. I care deeply for the community. When Gary Chouest wasn’t going to buy the team, the NBA purchasing the team was the best option for me and for the club to remain in New Orleans. In my conversation with David Stern, I told David, ‘My goal is to keep the team there. If you guys will work to that goal, I’d be happy for you guys to take it and go with it.’ And so, here we are.

Did you have offers from other suitors during that period? It has been reported that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wanted to buy the team and potentially move it to the West Coast.

Larry made a public statement that he had made an offer for $350 million. And that’s true. He did. I still have the offer signed, but I just couldn’t do it. I could not sell it to him. I could have gotten $50 million more for the team. But I just couldn’t do it. I knew his goal was one thing. He wants a team, but he wants it in California.

As things were breaking down with Gary, did he articulate to you any reasons as to why he was changing his mind?

Not really. Gary and I had some private conversations. That’s what they were, and that’s what they’re going to remain. But I mean there were a lot of issues going on at the time that anybody in Gary’s (offshore marine services) business would have been scared. With the gulf oil situation with the rig blowing up and people getting killed, and the president putting a (drilling moratorium) freeze on everybody, that’s enough to shake anybody to the core.

He didn’t tell me that. And I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I try to put myself in somebody else’s shoes, and I would have been afraid. He could have been afraid. I don’t know the answer to this. You’re going to have to ask Gary that question. We kept trying to make it work. The final deal I got with the NBA, Gary turned that offer down. I cannot even begin to say why. But I know there were a lot of things on his plate. It would be unfair for me to speculate.

I’m grateful for Gary Chouest. If it hadn’t been for him, and him buying part of this team, I probably would not have had the money to move this team back. Gary was there and helped me and was a wonderful partner the whole time we were together. He never got in my way. He never criticized. He helped sell tickets. He bought tickets. He helped sell suites. I couldn’t have a better partner. I’m not about to criticize him because he didn’t build this thing out at the last minute and try to keep it. I don’t understand why, and I’m not saying that in a negative way.

There are a lot of decisions to take on a responsibility in a franchise this big, with everything staring you right in the face. Do you trade this player? Do you try to cut costs by cutting players back? If you do that, you’re going to lose revenue from ticket sales. There were a lot of questions nobody really knew the answer to. Is Chris Paul going to stay? Who knows what’s going to happen? For any potential buyer, those things could have been scary.

One of those questions was the team’s financial condition. Shortly after the NBA takeover, reports indicated the team was burdened with a great deal of long-term debt (about $111 million). How did the team get into that long-term debt that seemed to be prevalent?

I think our long-term debt situation came when we started to try to build a team. When we first signed Peja (Stojakovic) and we signed him to a big (five years, $64 million) contract, and for the next year we wanted to take another step forward and the way to do that was to sign another free agent. And Morris Peterson was there (four years, $23 million). I talked to our GM at the time, Jeff Bower. We wanted to sign him, and it was going to cost money. We had to get rid of some other players to get our payroll down. During that time, we didn’t get rid of those players.

As far as the debt is concerned, after Katrina, I was secure financially and I wanted to bring the team back to be part of the rebuilding in New Orleans. I knew I was going to lose money and I knew I was going to have to build on the debt, but I knew the franchise was going to be worth a whole lot more than whatever the debt would be. The NBA only allows you to borrow a certain amount of money. There are a number of teams in the league who are already at the maximum. And we got there, too. And it was a situation that (wife) Denise and I prayed about. And we decided the right thing to do was to come back to New Orleans and help be part of the building process.

We kept signing free agents and had other players who did not prove to be good players for the money we were paying them, and we couldn’t trade them. The numbers kept building. We had one good year, and then it sort of slipped and went in a direction we didn’t want to go in. We were having some financial difficulty.

It didn’t have any bearing to Larry Ellison. I know he’s one of the richest guys in the world and it’s small potatoes to him. But it’s big potatoes to most people.

There has been a lot of conjecture whether the community can support the Hornets. Do you think this team can survive here given the right set of economic circumstances?

I’ve always felt that. People have to understand, I will be 70 years old next month, and I’m not a spring chicken anymore. If I had been 40, I would have fought this thing tooth and toenail until the end. I would have not had made this decision had I not been the age I am, and I’d been through this battle with cancer and had I not gotten myself so right with the Lord it was time for me to start giving back, and start spending the rest of my days serving my maker. That’s exactly what I intend to do. After going through cancer, I made the decision to do that.

I believe with good marketing, New Orleans would support this team. You have to make some right decisions, get good partners and you could make this work. I firmly believe it can make it. I know there’ve been remarks about the size of the market, and after Katrina it has been damaged. But when we came back, the year we had our best record ever and won our division, it was great. It just proves it can work. It will work.

The NBA can be a successful venture in New Orleans. I firmly believe that, to the point that if the right folks came along and put some money in, I’d come back in.

If the opportunity presented itself under the right circumstances, would you be interested in becoming a minority owner?

Absolutely I would. No question about it. And there’s a lot of good people who love this team. It got to the point that I just kept trying to reach out to people and didn’t get a chance to make any major presentations to people. If you look at the financials at the time and the debt services, it’s kind of scary.

But you’ve got to realize, the league is working on a new collective bargaining agreement and they’ve got to get this thing better organized going forward. And I think everybody is going to come to their senses and get this thing worked out.

When that happens, if you’re managed properly, sell like the dickens and work hard, get the community involved, someone works in the community the way they should, this thing can be a jewel, a tremendous asset and make money. I made money in this league. I know how to do it. It can be done.

I want to communicate to the fans: please support this team. You have a chance to keep it. All they have to do to keep it is support it. If they support it, it’s going to end up staying there. I hope they do, because it’s been one of my goals ever since we moved back from Oklahoma City, to keep that team there. The Hornets belong in New Orleans. I hope the community supports them so they can stay there. I’m going to move on with my life, but I’ll still be spending time (in New Orleans). I’ve got my condo. We’re going to be coming back to do good things for the community. I just ask the community that prayed for me during my cancer battle, and I’ve overcome that and am healthy at this time. I just want them to keep praying for me, and I’m going to keep praying for them.